


molten gold

by moonguilt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 06, because i am insecure and i need internet validation thank you, do you like embarrassing keith? me too! please read so we can watch keith be embarrassed together, except its heavily klance focused because what are we animals, i wrote this for a zine app but i decided to post it publicly as well, its not his fault he is a nerd and also hopelessly in love, please enjoy or i will cry, they're all just goofing off as a team during their space road trip basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21943555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonguilt/pseuds/moonguilt
Summary: The team is traveling through space on their way back to Earth when Pidge mentions that she has downloaded Monsters and Mana into the lions.  Keith's nerdy past is unearthed and he must simultaneously endure his brother embarrassing him and Lance being unfairly adorable.  He has a difficult time of it.  It must be so hard being Keith.(He's pretty happy.)
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 196





	molten gold

“God, I’m so _boooored_.” Lance’s aggravated face popped up on the Black Lion’s main cockpit window, casting a faint red glow over Keith’s dashboard. Keith couldn’t exactly blame him; this so-called “space road trip” to Earth was taking much longer than they’d hoped, and habitable planets where they could take pit stops were few and far between.

A yellow glow appeared soon thereafter. “It feels like we’ve been flying for quintants,” Hunk groaned in agreement, his body half-way sunken into his chair. “Have we been flying for quintants? I definitely think we have. I pee approximately every five vargas, and since we left Iyethos, I think I’ve peed like …” He lifted a hand and started counting on his fingers, then sprung up in his seat, eyes wide. “Ohh, my God, I’m measuring time in intervals of pee. My sanity has reached a critical low.”

“Good Groggery, do humans really urinate so frequently?” Blue light entered the mix as Coran’s excited face materialized far too close to the screen, his body gracelessly crammed into the space between the control panel and the chair. Allura was leaning as far away as she could, her expression torn between annoyance and exhaustion.

Keith heard footsteps behind him, and a moment later Shiro’s robotic hand settled on the chair’s backrest. “Well, it depends on the—”

“Alright, no, we’re not having this conversation,” Keith interrupted immediately, already feeling the first pricks of a headache. “I know we’re all bored out of our minds, but I’m not gonna sit through you guys having some kind of pseudo-scientific discussion about the human bladder.” He dragged a gloved hand down his face. “There has got to be something better for you guys to entertain yourselves with.”

Finally, a green-tinted video feed flickered to life on his screen. “Say no more,” Pidge declared, smirking and cockily kicking her legs up onto the dashboard, only to find that she was a bit too short to maintain the position comfortably. She struggled for a moment before admitting defeat and sitting upright again. “Guess who just finished installing the latest Monsters and Mana data into our Lions’ shared network? As well as…” She adjusted her glasses. “... a dice bot?”

Lance was the first to react. “For real?!” he exclaimed, perking up in a way that Keith, at this point, could admit to himself was cute. “I mean—if you guys wanna play it, you know, I’ll tag along I guess.” He schooled his expression back into one of neutrality, pretending to examine his fingernails before realizing that he was, in fact, wearing gloves.

Pidge raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Oh, you mean you’ll lower yourself to play a _nerd_ game with us humble _nerds_ , huh?”

“I am feeling charitable today, Pidgey.”

Coran was leaping in too close to the screen again before anyone else could get a word out. “Well what are we waiting for? I’ve been wanting to try out my newest campaign for longer than a Yarupian Velrod’s first—”

“Hey, hang on, Coran.” Lance held his hands together in a T shape. “Keith doesn’t have a character yet.” He paused, then jolted in his seat a bit. “Or, uh, Krolia, or Romelle, or Shiro technically since, uh, you know, the last one wasn’t really _his_ …” The faintest color started to rise to his cheeks, barely visible in the red glow of his lion’s cockpit.

 _Pretty_ , Keith’s mind informed him helpfully.

“… Anyway, plus they probably don’t even know how to play—”

“Of course I know how to play!” Romelle interjected, looking affronted as she squeezed past Coran and into the frame. “I used to play this all the time!”

“It _is_ a highly popular Altean pastime,” Allura admitted. Only the top of her head was visible over her fellow Alteans. It seemed she had managed to squeeze far enough away in her seat to give their unpredictable limb movements a wide berth.

“And I do have my … ah … the clone’s memories,” Shiro added, his words coming out somewhat choppy and uncomfortable, “so … I know how it works. I think.”

“I will admit I am familiar with the game as well.” Keith nearly jumped out of his skin as his mother’s voice spoke over his shoulder. When did she get there? Wasn’t she sleeping? God, she was silent as the grave. “It is an excellent way during free time for Blade members to train their strategic skills and teamwork abilities through intricate problem-solving simulations.”

“… Yeah that sounds fun,” Lance commented in a flat tone, then waved emphatically at Keith. “Well still, Keith’s got no idea—”

Keith could _hear_ the obnoxious grin on Shiro’s face as he inhaled. “Well, actually—”

“Shiro, _no_.”

“Keith’s not really as inexperienced as you might think—”

“Do _not_.”

“See, the thing about him and Matt and Adam is—”

Keith didn’t even allow himself a moment of pity over the slight hesitation in Shiro’s voice when mentioning Adam. He was too busy jumping up and clambering over his seat to tackle his adoptive brother. Try as he might, though, he wasn’t strong enough to get a hand over Shiro’s laughing mouth before—

“—they were _total_ Dungeons and Dragons dorks.”

Keith let out a garbled noise, somewhere between a growl and a wail, and slumped back into his seat, letting his messy hair fall into his face. He could have sworn he heard a hum of amusement from Krolia’s direction.

He was allowed a moment of silent wallowing, and then:

“ _WHAT_? Are you serious?!”

“Incredible! Why, Keith, if you were already fighting dragons at that age—”

“Shiro, my dude, I love and trust you, but you are definitely lying right now—”

“He’s not.”

All attention turned to Pidge, who was now fixing Keith with a knowing look that he did _not like one bit._

“Pidge …” he grumbled in warning. She merely winked in his direction.

“It’s all true. Matt would come home and ramble about all the wacky quests he would send you guys on. He always took it easy on you, though, because you were _a wittle baby_ ,” she crooned, sticking out her lower lip. “Keith was like … thirteen, max, when they started. And he always played an edgy self-insert barbarian named—”

Keith’s irritation turned to absolute dread; a veritable wave of ice rushed down his spine. He didn’t even have time to protest.

“— _Thunderstorm Darkness_.”

One could hear a pin drop in the split second silence that followed.

“... No way,” Lance whispered, and like that, the dam broke.

Howling laughter from all around met Keith’s ears. He hunched down in his chair and shot both Pidge and Shiro absolute death glares as his teammates laughed so hard they _cried_. Shiro had the decency to look at least a little apologetic, but Pidge only fell into even louder hysterics.

“What?” Keith demanded hotly, his burning shame urging him to defend himself. Kosmo wandered over and began snuffling at Keith’s legs, as if sensing his distress. “I was a kid! And it’s not even that bad, you guys are overreacting—”

“THUNDERSTORM DARK—PFFFFTTT—” Lance’s laughing face was beautiful, even when he was laughing at Keith’s expense. Stupid beautiful Lance.

Keith couldn’t even find it in himself to stay mad when Lance’s bright laughter echoed around the cockpit. He was really starting to regret this whole “falling in love” thing. It definitely gave Lance way too much power over him.

Ah, did he say love? He meant crush. Stupid little crush. Keith was just very gay, and Lance was just very handsome. And nice. And smart. And funny. And heroic. And—

“Alright, everybody, that’s enough,” Shiro’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. “Why don’t we give everyone a minute to figure out their characters’ attributes and statistics? I’d like to make a new one too, personally.”

Everyone calmed down a bit after that; it was valid for Shiro to want to create a new character, after all. It was his own way of moving forward, in a sense. Starting fresh.

The team rambled about their past Monsters and Mana adventures while Keith, Shiro, Krolia, and Romelle listened quietly and designed their characters. Krolia’s choice of a basic fighter class was no surprise; neither was Romelle’s choice of druid, given her love of cute little animals.

When Shiro was finished, he cleared his throat and announced with great gusto:

“My character will be named Kiro. I want him to be a paladin.”

Hunk let out a defeated sigh, but everyone smartly kept their mouths shut.

Lance leaned forward then, his pretty blue eyes on full display. It took a moment for Keith to realize that his lips were moving too. Huh, that’s nice. Keith liked it when Lance’s lips moved. Oh, but they were frowning now. Wait, why were they frowning?

“Uh—what?” Keith stammered belatedly, willing his face to remain neutral. “I… zoned out.” He could feel his ears burning and quickly adjusted his hair to cover them.

Lance rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Dude, you were looking right at me while I was speaking to you, I don’t know how you managed to ‘zone out.’ Unless...” Something else must have occurred to him then, because his brows furrowed, and concern washed over his expression.

Oh no. _No no no_ —

“Are you alright, man? You been getting enough sleep?” Lance’s gaze swept over Keith’s body, which nearly shivered under the attention. Keith thanked whatever deity out there that he still had some semblance of self control. “We don’t have to do this right now if you’re not up for it. You gotta take care of yourself, Keith,” he concluded, his tone far gentler than it had been just moments earlier.

Oh.

Something twisted in Keith’s chest at the way his name sounded coming from Lance’s lips, soft with worry. It churned and coiled around his sternum for a moment before melting into his very core, creating a hot gooey feeling that climbed to his shoulders and pooled in his stomach simultaneously. Lance may as well have poured molten gold into his veins, for all the warmth and all the worth with which it filled him.

“... I’m okay,” Keith managed eventually, dragging himself out of his reverie, only to find the rest of the team dead silent and watching him with amused expressions. “So. Um. What were we talking about?” He was _so ready_ for this conversation to move on to safer territory.

Lance did not seem to catch Keith’s little moment of weakness, if his cheerful demeanor was any indication. “I was asking what your character is,” he clarified, leaning forward with another one of those devilish grins that drove Keith crazy in the best way. “Come on, mullet, lay it on us.”

That was enough to draw a hefty sigh from Keith, but he cleared his throat and answered anyway:

“He’s a barbarian, and his name is Thunderstorm Darkness.”

And, sure, Keith knew his teammates’ teasing would be endless. But it was a necessary sacrifice. One that paid off, he thought to himself, reveling in the fresh bout of laughter that shook Lance’s form, and the knowledge that he was responsible for it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! follow me on tumblr and twitter at: @moonguilt


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